Thistle and Twigg by Mary Saums Read Free Book Online Page B

rack just as someone knocked on my door. I looked out to see Cal, already seated in the same rocker he occupied the previous night. Homer stood and watched my movements behind the blind.
    As the screen creaked open, I said, “So, did your hunting expedition this morning go well?”
    Cal gave me a puzzled look, then understood. “Fine. Just skunks.” The thick aroma of whiskey that already emanated from Cal’s vicinity grew stronger when he spoke. “You got to watch people, Jane. You got to watch ’em real good.” Ah, well. It was going to be another of those jumping conversations of disparate musings heavily laced with alcohol.
    “Right, then. I’ll just fetch some tea.”
    Once settled with our refreshments, including some nice dog biscuits I’d bought for Homer, Cal brought up something we discussed briefly in our walk. “Tell me again what all you did on the digs, you know, back when you’d go around with them archaeology people.”
    “Well, I was just a digger. Strictly volunteer. I didn’t have the college degrees necessary to be anything more. I was never in charge. Never a professor. Strictly amateur.”
    Cal turned toward me in his chair. “And you liked that, getting all dirty and sweaty and working until your shoulders and arms were wore out? Knowing you’d be doing the same thing again the next day?”
    I laughed. “Well, yes. I did it for the love of it. It’s true, most of the time you find nothing for your hard work. And yet, on the day when a buzz travels through the workers, when someone has uncovered something, I can tell you there’s nothing more exciting. If I am to be totally honest, I loved it just as much on the boring days. Just touching the earth, thinking that someone long ago, someone of a different race in a different country, or perhaps an ancient ancestor of your own, might have touched where you were working, just there where your hands lay. You think of their lives, what they thought, how they worked, whom they loved.”
    When some time passed without a response, I looked over at Cal. He rocked, lost in thought, then set straight into a new topic. “Miz Jane, I want to apologize if I scared you that first time, me shooting over Vernon’s car. He knew better than to do that.”
    Before I could say a word, Cal’s thoughts took another sharp turn, one I’d never have expected. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I’ve been thinking real hard about you a’wanting my land.”
    All my tiredness suddenly fell away. I said nothing in hopes his train of thought would continue in the direction I hoped it would go, rather than meander as it had done thus far.
    “The truth is, Old Doc Rose says I ain’t got much longer.” He tapped his chest, indicating his lungs, I assumed. “Hell, I’m eighty-two and I’ve been smoking since I was eight. It’s a wonder I’ve lasted this long.” He coughed and leaned forward in the chair, raising his bloodshot eyes, old and despondent, to mine.
    “What I have for you is a proposition,” he said. “That is, if you’re still interested in buying.”
    I didn’t want to sound too eager, so I merely inclined my head toward him and said, “What sort of proposition?”
    “Let me ask you something first. Why do you want it? You’ve got a mighty nice piece of property now yourself. And it’s just you living here, right?”
    “Yes. Just me.” He nodded and waited for me to continue. “I want it for peace, I imagine.” I told him about the military bases, and for the first time, I told someone my true feelings about our moves, how out of place I’d always felt. “Here, I don’t feel isolated, rather protected somehow. I suppose you understand what I mean?”
    He nodded again. A sly smile stretched across his face as he rocked. “Oh, yes. Yes, I do. That’s something I understand well.” We sat in companionable silence for a while before Cal took a deep breath and got to the true reason for this porch visit, the previous one, and